Double jump: Nintendo wants to build games that work across 3DS and Wii U

Can synergy revive Nintendo's fortunes?

Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto believes a future in which the company's top games can be played across home console and handheld platforms might not be too far away.

Speaking to Kotaku, the mastermind behind the Mario and Zelda franchises said there may be an opportunity to "unify the two development environments" in order to make games that run across Wii U and 3DS or future Nintendo hardware.

Miyamoto said that as technology has moved on, it has become "more and more possible to have a similar experience running on a lower-spec system."

He said: "What I can say is, certainly, within Nintendo the fact that our development environment for our home console is different from the development environment for our portable system is certainly an area of stress or challenge for the development teams.

"So as we move forward, we're going to look at what we can do to unify the two development environments."

Challenges and opportunities

He went on to explain the current challenges involved with creating a game that works on two platforms, but said bringing the two teams together might be a way to work around that.

He added: "Certainly from a development standpoint there is some challenge to it, because if you have two devices that have different specs and you're being told to design in a way that the game runs on both devices, then that can be challenging for the developer - but if you have a more unified development environment and you're able to make one game that runs on both systems instead of having to make a game for each system, that's an area of opportunity for us."

Could creating cross platform games be the key to Nintendo's long-term revival? We can definitely see the opportunity to play the same Mario Kart 8 game at home and on the move as a motive to snap up a Wii U and a 3DS.